Am I eligible to enter?

Entries for the 2018 SI Leeds Literary Prize were accepted from 1 January – 30 April 2018 and this year’s Prize is now closed.

The Award is open to published and unpublished women writers, over the age of 18, of Black or Asian descent who are resident in the UK. Ethnicity will be self-defined by entrants. As a guideline, Black or Asian descent in the context of the Award signifies any Black background, including:

Black African

Black Caribbean

any other Black background

any Asian background, including:

Bangladeshi

Indian

Pakistani

Thai

Malay

Philippine

Vietnamese

Chinese

Japanese

countries in the Middle East

any other Asian background

any mixed background, including

Asian and White

Black and White

Any other background from more than one ethnic group.

The Award is open to unpublished novels and/or collections of short stories of any genre of no less than 30,000 words. Manuscripts that have been previously published will not be eligible. However, whilst the main body of the novel or collection of short stories should comprise unpublished work, submissions will be accepted where no more than 25% of the work has been previously published. Manuscripts currently available for sale online, either in full or in significant proportion (i.e. more than 50% of the total manuscript) will be ineligible. Manuscripts either partially or wholly available online for no charge will be eligible.